In Love With Language: Thee Irony of It All

Irony - a contrast or contradiction between appearance and reality, between what was expected and what actually happened, or between meaning and intention.

Type of Irony	Definition	Example
Verbal Irony	A writer or character says something that is the opposite of what that person really means.	Your younger brother lets out an enormous burp at dinner, and you say, “I see you’ve been working on your table manners.”
Situational Irony	Something happens that contradicts what the reader, a character, or the audience expects to happen.	A character’s enemy ends up being the person who saves him when he gets trapped in a cave during a camping trip.
Dramatic Irony	The reader or audience knows something that a character does not.	The audience knows that a character in a movie is a liar, but his girlfriend believes everything he tells her.